FATF to examine Pakistan’s progress on Oct 16-18

Islamabad: Financial Action Task Force (FATF) will examine Pakistan’s progress on its existing action plan during plenary meeting on October 16 to October 18 in Paris.

FATF officials said that Pakistan’s efforts will be thoroughly analyzed in the meeting before taking any further step.

Only FATF has authority to change the status of Pakistan or to blacklist it, he added.

The officials said that Asia Pacific Group (APG) had assessed the effectiveness of Pakistan measures to combat money laundering and terrorist financing and expressed satisfaction over them.

On the other hand, the communiqué of the APG talks has not mentioned to blacklist Pakistan. APG cannot change the status of Pakistan as FATF is only authorized to do so, it stated.

The APG meeting also reviewed important reports on Pakistan, Chinese Taipei, Hong Kong, China, Philippines and Solomon Islands.

Earlier in June, 2018, FATF had placed Pakistan ‘grey list’ for not acting against terror financing on its soil.

On June 20, the Securities and Exchange Commission of Pakistan had issued the anti-money laundering and Countering Financing of Terrorism Regulations 2018, in compliance with FATF recommendations.

The FATF is an inter-governmental body established in 1989 to combat money laundering, terrorist financing and other related threats to the integrity of the international financial system.